November 15, 2012

History in the Making

Post by:

Jessica Friesen

MBA 2013

From October 18-21 MBA
students from Boston University and from across the country gathered at
Boston’s Seaport World Trade Center for the 2012 Reaching Out MBA Conference: Together, Building Community.

Externally, ROMBA might have appeared to be your run-of-the
mill business school conference. It was well funded and attended by top
universities and firms from across the country with an impressive array of heavily
subsidized food and beverages. BU’s School of Management showed up with our
expected leadership and volunteerism, as multiple Cohort Q (SMG’s LGBT
association) members helped organize activities. On Friday, I coordinated the
nonprofit breakout session, Brave New
World: Charting a Path for Social Impact in the 21st Century. On
Saturday, Stacey Sharer (MBA 2014) led a nonprofit consulting case workshop for
business students to provide recommendations to a local nonprofit, and the Feld
Career Center recruited at the pre-MBA fair. Each morning of the conference,
Tim Pennell(MBA 2013) rose early to coordinate sponsored runs.

So, while ROMBA may have looked
like your run-of-the-mill conference, ROMBA was actually a much more momentous event than a great line up of
recruiters (BCG, McKinsey, Bain) and panels (consulting, marketing, human
capital). ROMBA was significant in that it demonstrated the enormous progress
our country has made towards equality in the last decade.

How did the conference demonstrate progress? The Reaching
Out MBA conference is the annual national gathering of lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender (LGBT) graduate business students. Why is this significant? Not
only are LGBT employment protections still nonexistent in 29 states, but a
decade ago the idea of openly gay senior executives was unheard of. However, Reaching
Out is a small part of a groundswell of corporate support for LGBT equality. At
a national level, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos contributed $2.5 million to support gay
marriage, which was on the ballot
in Washington. UPS
is among a number of firms defunding Boy Scouts of America for policies
that ban gay troop leaders and scouts. As companies put resources behind their
commitment to LGBT equality, progress becomes attainable.

Solutions to global challenges like the human rights of the LGBT
community will only come if we are able to address them across sectors. And on
November 6, as the country experienced a landslide for LGBT equality (marriage
passed in three states and the first openly gay congresswoman was elected), I
found myself thinking about ROMBA and how firms like Walt Disney Co., J.P.
Morgan Chase & Co., Teach for America, and Unilever are playing an
important role in this process. Reaching Out demonstrates and is part of this
progress. Cohort Q and members of the SMG community are privileged to see and
participate in this history.

Jessica Friesen believes in cross-sector solutions to social
change, is a member of BU's MBA Class of 2013, and is enrolled in the PNP
program. Born and raised in Southeast Asia, Jessica is Co-President of SMG's LGBT
association, Cohort Q.